


Bentober 2019: Lust

by EnchantressEmily



Series: Bentober 2019 [2]
Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Asexual Awareness Week 2019, Bentober Challenge, Canon Aromantic Character, Canon Asexual Character, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Prompt Fill, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantressEmily/pseuds/EnchantressEmily
Summary: Ben has some questions about O'Malley's confrontation with Luxuria.
Relationships: Jack O'Malley & Ben Thackerey & Heinrich Wolfe
Series: Bentober 2019 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952116
Kudos: 12
Collections: Widdershins Fanworks Month Pieces





	Bentober 2019: Lust

**Author's Note:**

> This was [posted on Tumblr](https://enchantress-emily.tumblr.com/post/188500466980/bentober-day-19-lust) in October 2019 for the Bentober fandom challenge (combined in this case with Asexual Awareness Week!).  
> Prompt: Lust

Ben had been thinking over the little O'Malley had told them about his battle with Luxuria, and his academic curiosity was aroused. The next time he had a chance to speak with O'Malley in comparative privacy (they were sitting on a bench in East Anchor Park while Wolfe busked; the money was needed to tide them over while they hunted for new jobs, and there had been a tacit understanding that Captain Barber would look the other way on the matter of a license), he brought the subject up.

“Wolfe seemed very sure that you wouldn’t have any trouble with, er, the seventh of our recent enemies,” he said, keeping his voice low enough to be covered by the music. "He said you weren’t interested in what it had to offer.“

O'Malley gave a short laugh. "S'what I thought too. Th’ last part’s right enough, though.”

“In that case…” Ben hesitated. It felt rude to ask for details about someone’s intimate feelings like this, but the more he understood about the events of that day, the better prepared he would be if anything like it ever happened again. "You said it had a hold on you through Wolfe and me. If you don’t… feel that particular emotion, then how…?“

"Pffh. Kissin’ an’ goin’ t'bed together in’t all there is, even if everybody acts like it. An’ y'don’t have t'be all soppy in love with a person fer them t'mean somethin’ t'ye, neither.” O'Malley’s eyes went to Wolfe, who stood a few paces away, absorbed in his playing. Ben wondered if he knew how much his usual guarded expression softened when he looked at his friend.

He thought he understood what O'Malley was saying; although Wolfe and his Mal weren’t a couple in the commonly understood sense of the word, it was very clear that they had a deep and lasting bond. Evidently Luxuria could exploit emotional attachment as easily as it could sexual desire.

Ben opened his mouth to say _All right, that explains Wolfe, but why was I part of it?_ ; then he shut it again. He remembered that in the struggle to find other lodgings after the loss of their house, none of them had suggested or even hinted that they might go their separate ways. The idea hadn’t so much as crossed his mind until now, and he rather suspected that it hadn’t crossed Wolfe’s or O'Malley’s mind either. 

He tried to imagine himself facing Luxuria with O'Malley and Wolfe held hostage; irritating as O'Malley could be at times, Ben knew that a threat to either of them would have made him yield just as a threat to Vee would have. Somehow, over the past year, they had become a peculiar sort of family.

“Didn’t think it’d catch me th’ way it did,” O'Malley said suddenly, interrupting Ben’s musings. He was looking down, picking at a frayed strand of yarn at the cuff of his left glove. "Thought not feelin’ all that’d be some use f'r once, ‘stead of jus’ makin’ me different from everyone else.“

Ben wasn’t sure what to say to that. "Does it bother you, being different in that way?” he ventured.

O'Malley shrugged. "A bit? Mostly not. S'a hell of a lot less trouble than seein’ spirits. Jus’… some people don’t understand. They think I’m weird fer not wantin’ to kiss anybody an’ fer not gettin’ th’ jokes about it.“

Ben could sympathize with that; at university he had always been the last one to realize when a classmate was making a rude joke, and he never found the joke particularly funny when it was explained to him.

"Well, for what it’s worth, I think a lot of people are too preoccupied with that subject anyway,” he said after a moment. “If they think you’re weird, that’s their problem, not anything wrong with you. And even if Luxuria tricked you at first, you did save us from it in the end.”

O'Malley nodded. "Thanks,“ he said quietly, sending Ben a crooked sidelong smile.


End file.
